Trump administration argues judge can’t order return of man mistakenly deported

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge didn’t have the authority to order the Trump administration to broker the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported from the U.S. to a notorious El Salvador prison, government attorneys argued Saturday as they urged an appeals court to suspend the ruling.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Friday ordered the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. by late Monday night.

Justice Department lawyers asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to immediately pause the judge’s order.

“A judicial order that forces the Executive to engage with a foreign power in a certain way, let alone compel a certain action by a foreign sovereign, is constitutionally intolerable,” they wrote.

The appeals court asked Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to respond to the government’s filing by Sunday afternoon.

Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national, was arrested in Maryland and deported last month despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to El Salvador, where he faced likely persecution by local gangs.

His mistaken deportation, described by the White House as an “administrative error,” has outraged many and raised concerns about expelling noncitizens who were granted permission to be in the U.S.

Xinis, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said there was no legal basis for Abrego Garcia’s detention and no legal justification for his removal to El Salvador, where he has been held in a prison that observers say is rife with human rights abuses.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said the government has done nothing to get his client back, even after admitting its errors.

“Plenty of tweets. Plenty of White House press conferences. But no actual steps taken with the government of El Salvador to make it right,” he told the judge on Friday.

The White House has cast Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member and doubled down on that claim after Friday’s hearing. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have countered that there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

Abrego Garcia had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S., his attorney said. He served as a sheet metal apprentice and was pursuing his journeyman license.